I wonder aloud
about a backpack
that I left back
in an old lover’s
room,
filled with dreams
of our
future
even as
her heart
cracked
as
she emptied hers
out for the things
she felt I
lacked.

I am no
Saint—
in fact,
I am just a
Sinner,
but I’ve always
known that—
and my heart’s
no thinner
for giving myself
the right
to let my
Love
shimmer
like broken
bottle caps or
sea glass
on the beach
in
Winter.

I have
emerged from
the chrysalis,
but no one knows
like me
where the
missile is
that I
hid as a child
from the eyes
of the nosy
kind of god
my brother
was;
thistle is
a kind of
hiding place
where a child
can go
to think;
this ill is
the kind
that finds its
own cure.

If I could be
anything
small,
I’d choose to be
a moment
in a poem
where the
reader whispers,
‘Wow,’
but then forgets
to stall
long enough
to mark the page
at all;
I’ll be here
when you come looking
for me
again
after he breaks
your heart
next Fall.

The quieter we are,
the easier it goes,
but I am full of
colors—brimming
at the nose—
and when I speak
of flowers,
the word flows
like Lethe toward
unutterable Hades,
where he shows
Orpheus
that Hell
is a place
behind and
inside him
waiting simply
for
his eyes
to un.close.

Ovid
ought to have
left Orpheus
with the rocks;
I know that I think of
him when I
stare at clocks
(with my ears
mostly),
and think of Shakespeare’s
‘thousand natural shocks’
and how I got
to be so shabby
and tattered;
so
practiced at being
sanguine
compared to
my
pristine
condition
when I came
‘out of
the box’.

What were the ways
in which
Ancients
held
hands?
(I toss up a question,
but don’t wait to
see where it lands.)
You see, I ask
because I have
plans
to shout the moon
down from the sky
and make of
her demands.
(I only hope
she
understands.)

I like to write a thing that
no one else will claim;
like maybe it’s too
ordinary
or like
a poem
or a moment
slipped by
quicker
than you were
able to
determine
whether
it was
noteworthy
or not;

That’s what loving you
is like:

the noteworthy
moments
taste
just like
the others
at first,
but the
sweetness
creeps in
the back door
when
no one’s
looking
and blooms
on your
tongue
in rememberance
like askew smiles
of diffidence.

Recall the
feeling you get
when you see a
bow being pulled
across strings;
just before
striking
sparks
from them,
you can see
the tendons
rippling against
the skin–
the antepenultimate
breath of
nightingales’
melodious
Lydian
songs;

And what
I am
struggling
to say
is:

That’s what
touching you
is like:

the strain
before
the sound.

Give me
a shaded
grove
o’ercrowded
with hanging trees
and a lament
and I will
weave a flower
in the air
for you:

lilacs
like I imagine
you
to be.

Lilacs, though,
in the fragility
of youth,
vapors
preceding
the first
opening of their
star-blooms:

I am in
a place
where
quiet things
never happen;
like heel-crushed
lily fragrance rising
to six-year old
nostrils with
swirl soft
inhales;
like hands
warmed by
tea
in old,
worn out
cups;
like eye laughter
or toes curling
in shoes;
like betrayal;
like finding God
or losing him.

Flourish-stroked
graffiti walls
match the tufts
of my hair
and no one
notices
my guilt.

I loved all things
equally
until I chose one
and then I loved
her
less
for the
choosing.

I have a fear of falling through the ocean and landing in the sea,
Or of how she says airplanes make her feel romantic–shooting impossibly through
Whipped fields of luminescence. One day I’ll tell her how it is with me.

I feel as though I sneak into unlikely slipstreams
When she slides past me and furtively drops a glance on my ragged cheekbones;
I am constantly defeated by tree breath whispers that grip me,
And I like the way her silence sings with mine in subtle tones.

I am not made up of stardust, anymore.

It’s frightening how romanticism decays into pragmatism
And how natural and unhurried it makes you feel at the edge of a Tuesday evening.
I recall my wonder at the red candles lain out for catechism,
And I understand at last the way flame illumines even as it destroys everything.

I have a fear of falling through the ocean and landing in the sea,
It always starts with confusing the night sky with its face on the sliding black waters;
I have a fear of falling through myself and landing without me.